Former NHS Trust chairman Roy Lilley told Talk Radio’s Julia Hartley-Brewer this morning that if we have a bad Winter with flu, “elective procedures will stop again.” He also expressed concern that “there isn’t a plan.” Lilley explained how it is likely to pan out this Winter, saying:
“Effectively we’ve got sort of two hospitals haven’t we? We’ve got the hospitals that deal with the emergencies, all the things like 999, blue light and all that stuff and then we’ve got what we call the elective procedures where people are waiting for a new hip or a knee or a hernia or a cataract.
So we can always take the capacity out of the elective procedures and use it for emergency procedures. Now that’s really what happened during Covid………. The NHS got through Covid but it did it effectively by putting the brakes on the elective procedures which is why we have a huge waiting list problem now.
So if we have a bad Winter with flu and there’s this thing about you know we didn’t have flu last year….and if that happens and we have to put the brakes on the elective procedures, once again the queues build up.”
Currently in the UK, there are five million people waiting for routine surgeries and procedures. Many of them are living in pain. According to recent reports by the BBC and the Telegraph newspaper, that number could rise to 14 million by Autumn 2022.
My guess is that as the warnings of bad flu seasons and more transmissible covid variants get louder, the pressure to have covid and flu jabs, or covi-flu jabs will become severe. Think ask not what your NHS can do for you, but rather what you can do for your NHS.
Former NHS trust chair Roy Lilley says there is no NHS plan to deal with a winter crisis or backlog of millions of patients.
"If we have a bad winter with flu, elective procedures will stop again. It comes with a cost. I'm concerned there isn't a plan."@JuliaHB1 | @RoyLilley pic.twitter.com/dfOHJ6pkxY
— TalkTV (@TalkTV) September 1, 2021
